The Wound and the Hearts
by iLolita
Summary: When tragedy strikes in the life of Ui Hirasawa, only one person can save her from herself.
1. Prologue of the Wound

_**"In the beginning we are numb to the acid that slowly eats away at our heart; the acid's name is 'Sorrow'."**_

It always rained when Azusa was down. Or perhaps it rained because she was down. She gazed out the window at and to the street still under the tireless assault of the early Summer rains that plagued Japan. It was only a light drizzle so far but the forecaster on TV had announced heavy storms. She sighed; though she reluctantly admitted it was perfect weather to get lost in thought... the rain never was to her liking. Her pencil tapped on the desk in a familiar rhythm as her eyes became heavy.

A loud voice shattered her daydream in to pieces smaller than the bite-sized cookies Mugi brought to the clubroom every day. Startled, she turned to the girl in front of her and yelped. Jun's face wasn't entirely visible to her thanks to how far she was leaning over the table. Her face broke into a smile at the sight of Azusa jumping back and she sat down again, failing to disturb yet another girl at the table next to her. Unlike her sister, Ui always seemed to be reliable and unshakable even at times like this when the work environment wasn't exactly the best in the world.

Jun continued playfully pestering Azusa about her daydreaming, adopting an expression of feigned disgust at the drizzle outside that was slowly turning into a monsoon. She picked up her pencil again and shot one final grin, a friendly remark, at Azusa before turning back to her work. It wasn't at all odd to expect such interruptions from Jun so she just shrugged it off and gave a the street another fleeting glance before following suit and returning to her own homework.

They had all gathered after school and decided they would finish their homework at Ui's house. Yui-senpai would be out for the rest of the day so the chances of Azusa or Ui becoming distracted and forgetting about their homework was next to non-existant. Jun, however, had been causing problem the entire afternoon; as a result, Azusa had hardly finished the first page of her homework and was stuck on the first part of the second page. Her assumption was that eventually, the disruptive girl would soon tire of horseplay and she would be allowed to finish her homework in peace.

That assumption would turn out to be very, very wrong indeed.

* * *

Yui hummed happily as she strode down the street beside her childhood friend, Manabe Nodoka. Ui had lovingly sent Yui off with her that evening after school with a gentle yet stern reminder of the things Yui needed to buy at the grocery store. They were running out of many things but most of all they needed another carton of milk. Nodoka was sent along merely as a precaution against reckless buying; Ui knew all too well the types of stores her airheaded sister would see on the way to get the milk and wanted to avoid sending her again tomorrow if she spent the money on, say, new strings for Gitah.

Nodoka simply wished she could enjoy the same carefree nature as Yui frequently did. Both of them would be soaked to the bone if the rain got any worse before they arrived at Yui's house, and Nodoka herself had yet even more walking to do afterward. Ahead of her the carefree figure did a twirl in the rain, frolicking in the increasingly wet atmosphere.

Nodoka voiced a tentative wish to hurry on that was met with disappointment and mock sadness on Yui's part. Another figure, tattered and seemingly worse for wear, was walking down the sidewalk towards the pair while staying unnoticed. The girls argued in good nature as they neared the man, whom they could have identified as homeless had they happened to glance forward. Instead, Yui kept up her act until she bumped into the man. He tried to take the milk out of her hands.

This was something Yui couldn't allowed. Lose the milk and have her sister's disappointment weight in her conciousness the rest of the night? Of course she would forget it happened by morning but this would not stand at all!

She let out a loud protest and tugged on the milk, jerking the man around to face her. He yelled something and brought up a dark grey object; Nodoka yelled back at the man but something hit Yui in the chest and knocked her on her back. Yui was surprised at how hard the man could punch... it felt like she'd been hit by a train! Instead of going after the milk, Nodoka got down next to Yui and was saying something. Why did she have to mumble? Her chest hurt something terrible; the man must have hit her pretty hard but it was impolite of Nodoka not to help her up. She wanted to berate her but she couldn't seem to breathe to do so.

* * *

Once again a noise, although much less human this time, broke Azusa's dream. As if waking up from a dream, Ui looked around before locating her phone on the table next to her homework; the light-up display on the front informed her that it was from Yui's friend, Nodoka. Ready to be told they would be home late, Ui picked up the phone with a faint smile and greeted the person at the other end.

All three girls recoiled as Nodoka screamed at her from the other end of the line. In between her words, they could all hear the rain and another sound. Ui's eyes widened and started to tremble, her stare glazing over with a horrible blankness. with a final half sobbed, half shouted command the line was suddenly cut. Nodoka had hung up without so much as a good bye.

Ui didn't put the phone down after Nodoka had hung up. She wasn't capable of movement, nor was she capable of hearing or seeing anything else. Azusa and Jun battered her with questions about the call without realizing the girl would not answer. They had not heard what she heard through the masking noise of the summer rain.

They had not heard Hirisawa Yui's ragged gasps, her feeble attempts to draw breath through the flow of crimson flooding her chest.


	2. Chapter 2

To Ui it felt as if she were trying to pull her consciousness out of a think gel that engulfed her mind. Faintly she could hear her father's voice telling her that it was time to wake up for school, that she had forgotten to set her alarm but _luckily_ he was here today to wake her up. Finally breaking the surface of the gel in her mind she turned on her side and propped herself up on one elbow, favoring her father with a bleary-eyed stare.

Light was filtering in through the thin curtains on her windows and casting a dark, golden light into the room. Her father's voice grew faint as he continued to talk to her even while going down the stairs; something about making breakfast... oh well, she would get to it later. She threw off the heavy blanket covering only half of her body and swung her leg over the side of the bed and was taken by surprise by a yawn. Everything seemed awkward and sluggish, taking more thought and willpower to do which was something Ui was not accustomed to. Shaking her head in an attempt to get her mind moving faster she scooted off the side of the bed and stood up, swaying a bit.

Once again frustrated by the sudden blankness in her head, she looked around as if searching for a clue as to what she was supposed to do next. She spotted the dresser before remembering she couldn't go to school in a sky blue pair of pajamas. Yawning loudly for the second time, she rummaged through her drawers for her school uniform that she washed yesterday. As she pulled the top of the uniform out of the drawer something else caught her eye; another uniform was in her drawer. Without looking away from the second uniform in her drawer she set hers down on top of the dresser.

_Isn't this onee-chan's uniform? What's it doing in my dresser?_

She pulled Yui's uniform out and examined it for dust and wrinkles by habit before also setting it down on top of the dresser. With a shrug, she got dressed and grabbed her sister's uniform before heading down the hall to put it back in her room. Not, of course, before making her bed and cleansing the room of any sign of messiness.

_I bet she's trying to get out of going to history class again today…_

Ui smiled at her sister's antics. It had been a long time since Yui has actually done this sort of thing on accident, though she still had her moments. Other people had always commented on how odd it was that herself, Hirasawa Ui, was the more mature sister but she had never known the difference. Yui was Yui and she loved her sister all the more for simply being herself. Besides, It can't be very easy being Yui all the time; once she had tried to imitate Yui in order to help the K-ON club while her sister was sick but she hadn't lasted even ten minutes without being found out.

She switched the uniform between her hands and turned the knob to her sister's door, pushing it open lightly so Yui would wake up to her voice instead of the door flying open. She took a couple steps into the room and peaked around the corner, opening her mouth to speak.

Her voice stopped in her throat at the sight of the empty bed. For one happy, delusional second her brain tried to tell her that Yui had set her alarm too early again and was already downstairs. That moment, however, was crushed the moment the awful truth came flooding back into her memory.

Yui Hirasawa had been dead for at least a week now.

She turned from the room in haste, tears burning and threatening to escape all at once. As she exited the room something caught on the door behind her, making her stop and glance behind her. She was still holding Yui's uniform. Without thinking she tossed the uniform back into the room and slammed the door shut behind her, leaning against it for support. Her eyes were clenched shut from trying to stop the tears she already knew she couldn't stop them just like the other times. She hadn't cried during the funeral, hadn't cried when it happened because of the numbness of the thought that none of it could be real. She couldn't cry now because she needed to get finished and get ready for school.

She pushed off the door, knowing she had to be downstairs anyway whether she would do it with dry eyes or not. Her parents would be in the living room and wouldn't see her anyways when she came downstairs.

* * *

Knife in hand, Ui set her hand on the cutting board and brought it down next to her hand, deftly cutting up the strawberry it held with a series of chops. It was the same breakfast they had every morning so she was fairly adept as making the cut little slices that her mother adored so much.

With her portion done she cut up two more before mechanically reaching into the strawberry basket for Yui's portion for the third time this week. She was cutting the second strawberry when she realized it. Angrily she threw the last few back into the basket and divided the strawberries up into her parent's bowls. It was just a short matter of washing the knife and putting away the strawberries before she could finish breakfast.

"Ouch-!" she hissed, dropping the knife in the sink and jerking her hand up to her mouth. Staring at the wound a moment she watched the blood slowly well up on her pointer finger before running down onto her palm.

_Wow, it went sort of deep. I should be more careful... _

She continued to stare at it in thought a while longer before dipping the finger into the running water and finishing up her cleaning. Her thoughts hadn't stopped as the bleeding had for the moment because something had occurred to her: when she slipped, her thoughts weren't on her sister but on her wounded finger. As odd as it sounded to her, she actually felt alright in that moment without all the emotional distress. The thought appealed to her but her thoughts were soon broken as she entered the living room.

* * *

Much like her state of wakefulness the day seemed to be cut into segments that made no sense put together the way they were. At the moment she found herself on the way up the stairs, passing the hollow turtle, to the music room to gather up Yui's things to take home to her parents. They felt that it was only right that her guitar and school belongings be returned home in her memory, something Ui would hoped they would say. It would feel much better if her things couldn't be reached by that awful girl that let her sister die. That horrible girl that ran away and left her sister alone... left her alone where she died alone, without her. With her sister. Without-

The uncharacteristic rage that was flooding her mind quickly floated away as approached the door to the music room, the music from behind it getting louder. She knocked, the music stopped and the door opened to reveal Mio behind it. Behind her she could see their teacher, Sawako, sitting while presumably watching the band practice. The teacher didn't seem to be in as high spirits as usual while with the girls but the cause of that might have been the fact she had been trying to be a better teacher lately rather than a better friend to the group. The rest of the girls could be seen with their instruments just inside the door way, looking curiously at Mio.

"Oh, Ui-chan! Come on in, we were just finishing practice." Mio said, opening the door wider to let her in.

Ui shook her head. "I won't be staying long. Mom wanted me to umm... to collect Yui's things from here and take them home today so..." she trailed off, slightly uncomfortable talking on the subject to the tall, black haired girl. She wanted to get her sister's things and leave as quickly as possible without feeling as if she were making a scene as she did so. She slipped in past Mio, head down, and hurried to the back of the room to the closet. She was painfully aware of the stares the other girls were giving her but wasn't aware that the teacher had gotten up. Just as she opened the storage she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked back to see Sawako standing behind her.

"Ui, I would like to speak to you before you head home today. If you would please, stop by the teachers' office after school" she said quietly before turning back to the other girl, making a motion to continue practicing. The music started up again and Ui started searching for her sister's things in the room. Gitah was very easy to find, set up in a corner of the room that was kept spotlessly clean but the rest of the stuff took a bit more searching. By the time she had found everything, only Mio and Azusa remained in the room after practice and before it was just her and Azusa. Ui turned with a bag in hand and Gitah resting on her back and noticed the black haired girl seemed to be waiting for her.

"Azusa? Shouldn't you be going home with the rest of them?" Ui asked, eager to be on her way herself and away from yet another place that her sister had spent her time at. Azusa looked up at Ui and smiled kindly, trying to put the girl at ease. She wasn't sure exactly how much pain she was in but being careful was always the best option in these situations.

"I was going to, yes, but it looked like you might need umm... might need some help carrying everything" she managed to say, her heart beating a mite bit faster than usual. Much to her surprise, Ui didn't immediately tell her no or simply walk out of the room. A smile lit up the lower half of her face; the smile didn't reach her eyes but it was a smile none the less.

"Oh thank you! I didn't realize my sister had brought so much stuff here" she shrugged a bag off her shoulder and handed it to Azusa, still sagging under the weight of Gitah and another bag. The dark-haired girl took the bag quickly and let Ui go out the door before her. As she was passing through the door something made her stop and look back; the club room was giving off a malevolent feeling that made her shiver. About Yui's death, it had occurred to her that she had never given death serious thought before, assuming that it was something detached from her. The way it was abruptly brought into her life... it frightened her badly, as the room was doing now.

She turned and hurried out after Ui, in her fright not noticing that the feeling had stayed in the room rather than with her.


End file.
